Slave Verse 4: Time to Love
by Gamebird
Summary: Peter and Sylar are together, deeply in love, and these are a few snapshots of their many years. Dedicated to Sabacat.
1. Time to Love

**A/N: This is set in the Slave Verse AU, though you don't need to read that to understand this. All you need to know is that Peter and Sylar are together and deeply in love, and that Sylar started off with a mission to rule the world with Peter's help.**

**I'm posting it separately from the rest of Slave Verse, because it… I don't know, it felt right to do it that way. No graphic sex, bad language or other warnings (there's a little violence).**

_Five years_

Sylar laid on the roof, already baking in the morning sun, sniper rifle braced before him and over the crest of the housetop. His muscles hurt, which told him that without regeneration he'd be having ferocious cramps. But a lot had happened in the last five years and one of the many things he'd gained was patience. He waited.

He was waiting for Maury Parkman, the secret leader of the League of Evil Mutants. (Just kidding.) Maury had organized a vast group determined to gain and wield political power for the advancement of those with abilities. It had taken a very long time for Peter and Sylar to realize his group even existed, not nearly so long to track down the one instrumental in running it once they knew it was out there. With Parkman's group out of the way, Sylar would be more easily able to achieve his goal of equal rights.

Murder was a weird way to go about it, but there was no court of law or jury of peers that could stand in judgment of either of them. It was the Old West all over again, but the idea of two gunfighters facing off at noon was a myth. Maury's ability had a range, hence the sniper rifle. Sylar had vetoed Peter's idea of personal confrontation. Sylar had had quite enough of that nonsense with Nathan. Eventually he'd convinced Peter to let him do it his way.

Maury came out of the house, waving at the man doing the edging and heading down to pick up the newspaper, or perhaps the mail. Sylar didn't care. He only cared that Maury tended to leave the relative protection of his house around 10 am most days. Noah Bennet's lessons on how to properly use his weapon paid off a few seconds later. The old telepath crumpled to the ground, the top of his head missing. Sylar considered that. It hadn't been a perfect shot, as there were too many variables of movement by the target. Maury was probably still alive. After a moment of reflection, he shot the body five more times – just in case.

It was enough.

* * *

_Ten years_

Sylar lay in the sun again, but this time he enjoyed it, feeling the cooling sea breeze over his skin. He moved his hand a few inches to the side, running his fingertips up and down the delicate skin of the inside of Peter's forearm, feeling a shadow of the sensation through the permanent telepathic link they now shared. The turning of Sylar's attention to him, far more than the touch itself, prompted the darker haired man to turn his head and smile lazily at him. Sylar smiled back.

Sometimes all it took was a look, or a shared smile, to make Sylar's heart race and his stomach to turn somersaults. It had been nearly a decade since they'd last been here. Peter had been the one to finally schedule it, as Sylar was always too busy, always claiming they'd get around to taking a vacation. Peter made the arrangements, cleared Sylar's calendar for a week and teleported him here. Sylar didn't mind. He knew who was in charge of his life – that had been made clear years before. He adored his Peter pet.

Their eyes locked together and Peter's smile crept up his face, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. They didn't need the bond they shared to know what the other was thinking. Sylar rolled over and grappled with his lover, laughing. They rolled off the cushions and onto the beach.

* * *

_Seventy-five years_

"Go, all right? Go. He'll be fine." Gabriel tried to shoo Peter's granddaughter out the door. The long good-byes annoyed him and it wasn't like he didn't have a staggeringly impressive resume for baby-sitting.

"Well, call me if anything happens, okay?" She worried anyway, like all new mothers did.

"Of course. I'm not going to drop him on his head or anything. You made it to adult, after all."

She laughed, finally heading out. She called back over her shoulder, "There was that time with the hammer…"

"I'll make sure to keep him out of the tool shed, so he'll be okay." Gabriel shut the door, leaning against it. He rolled his eyes heavenward, then pushed off and crouched next to the infant carrier. Within, a tiny baby slept – Peter's newest great-grandson. An expression of contentment and satisfaction stole across Gabriel's face. He loved seeing Peter's kids. They were all just a little bit like him (or in some cases a lot like him), odd reflections of his personality or his face, so familiar and yet not.

Not for the first time, he thought Peter had been right in taking a wife and starting a family, even though Gabriel had been reluctant to agree to it at first. Partly Peter had done it because of how wrapped up in running the world Sylar had become. They both knew the reasons, but it was odd how things had shifted between them. It was after Peter's fourth grandchild, when Sylar retired, feeling that he'd succeeded in everything he'd set out to do, that Peter had begun to feel the need to make the world a better place for his family.

If only he could get Claire to do more than flirt with him. They'd danced a few months ago and Peter had teased him mercilessly about it since. Ever since Gretchen passed away, Claire had been moody and morose. He and Peter had made it a mission to get her out of her house and back among the living. It seemed to be working. And if only he could get Peter to stick around more often. Lately he was always off tilting at one windmill or another, busier at trying to make the world bend to his will than Sylar had ever been.

He sighed and gently picked up the carrier, taking it into the living room of the old Petrelli mansion. He figured he could watch the news until the baby woke, which probably wouldn't be long. Maybe he'd hear something about what people thought of what Peter had been up to.

* * *

_One hundred-fifty years_

They snuggled in bed that night, Gabriel kissing along the top of Peter's head, one little affectionate peck after another.

"Would you stop that?" Peter grumped sleepily.

"No," Gabriel said simply, continuing to lavish attention on his partner. He was still thrilled with the novelty of having the real Peter back in his arms.

"I really wish you would," Peter shot back, sounding less sleepy.

"Mm. Make me," he challenged. He started kissing down the side towards Peter's ear. When he got there, Peter tensed all over – his ears were very sensitive in the flesh – less so in the dreams they shared. When Gabriel nibbled on it, Peter jerked his head away, clipping him on the chin and making Gabriel's teeth snap together – another thing that didn't happen in the dreams. Gabriel could have been bothered, but instead he reveled in the reality of it.

Peter huffed angrily, rolled over and sat up. Long association, sharing himself and trusting Gabriel had made Peter very open with his feelings. There was no point in hiding them, after all. Anything he felt, Gabriel knew, and vice versa. He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the heirloom grandfather clock against the wall. It wasn't like he was going to get much more sleep anyway – not until he did something about this constant distraction. He smiled. It was a nice distraction.

Gabriel's fingers touched his back – just a touch, not a stroke or a caress – just checking in even though he could feel Peter's mood clearly through the link. He touched him _because_ he could feel Peter's mood and the contact dispelled Peter's anger immediately as an even deeper wealth of intentions and emotions were conveyed in a moment of intimate touch. Peter turned back and pinned him, hands on Gabriel's shoulders. He leaned down and kissed, long, hard and passionate.

When they broke, Peter sighed and pushed him down a little against the mattress. "Is this what you want?"

"Yes, my pet. You were away for _months_, dealing with this never-ending war. I missed you."

"We were in each other's dreams virtually every night."

"I _**know**_. I miss you every time you leave though. Stay. Stay with me longer this time." He smiled warmly. "I command it."

"Yes, master," Peter murmured, before leaning in and kissing Gabriel again, stroking his face and rolling his body over him. They made love and found release and Peter didn't leave so soon this time.

* * *

_Three hundred years_

Gabriel draped his arm around Claire's shoulders as they stood on the hill and looked down into the valley. It was green and lush and terraformed within an inch of its life, but in places like this that was necessary. This was their valley and the community here had accepted them, despite knowing they weren't human – or at least, what was regarded as human these days, since the revolution. It was enough.

"You still miss him?" Claire asked of Peter.

"Do you still miss Gretchen?" Enough time had passed that his heart didn't break even at the mention of Peter like it once had, but he still wanted to lash out at her comment. He didn't though.

She sighed and leaned her head against him. She thought she understood how he must feel, but her knowledge was only a shadow and a seeming. Gretchen had been merely human. She'd never been a part of Claire's head almost as much as her own mental voice, knowing her heart even better than Claire did herself. Claire would never really understand what Peter had meant to Gabriel, but she offered what sympathy she could. "It was bound to happen eventually. He took so many chances. He was always out there fighting, trying to change things."

He tightened his arm around her a couple times in short hugs. She'd come back for him, doing what he and Peter had done for her years before. That she was right about Peter didn't make it any better. He felt like half a person and he knew he'd never fully heal.

"He's still in my dreams," Gabriel said distantly. "I think he's still out there." He just wished he knew if the dreams were real or not. He thought they were. Peter said they were, in them. If it was only his imagination, then surely Peter wouldn't have fought him so hard to convince him not to follow Peter into death. It wouldn't be the first time he'd known a telepath to survive the death of their physical body.

"I'd like to think there's something after," Claire said. "But we're not there yet. You're still _here_, Gabriel. Live. It's what he would have wanted." She didn't know how true that was, and Gabriel wondered if his own mind, knowing Peter's so well, might have replicated Peter's point of view and the presence he identified in his dreams as Peter, might only be a fabrication. He didn't know. His heart ached.

Not knowing how he felt, Claire broke away from him and headed down the hill. He had been condemned to a forever of living with people who didn't know him, who _couldn't_ know him. He was alone, and it was hell. After a last look at the verdant farmland, he followed her.

* * *

_Four hundred years_

He walked through the cave, marveling at the crystals, slowly growing mineral masterpieces in this isolated place. He came to the platform he'd arranged for himself and laid down. Sleep was easy to induce. It was time and even Peter agreed. He would dream forever and be with everyone he had ever loved – real or not, it didn't matter anymore. Heaven was his memories and the many cherished moments he'd spent. He went to it willingly, for it was not oblivion. It was eternity in bliss.

He closed his eyes and a moment later he walked out into the sunlight, across the sandy beach. Peter was waiting for him.

* * *

_Later_

Something brushed his face. It had been so very long since he had sensed anything in his actual body – anything beyond the occasional drop of water, the gradual accumulation of dust or the slow formation of crystal reaching across his skin. Now something else moved across his skin, something warm and familiar in a way he could barely place. It touched his lips and this was different, different from the contact that had cleared his skin of the detritus that marked the passage of time in this timeless cavern he'd chosen for his final rest. What touched him now was a hot, living breath and a gentle pressing of soft lips against his own.

He inhaled sharply as they lifted away and he forced life into limbs so long lifeless and still. It hurt as he reanimated himself, like a million overlapping pins and needles. All of the powers he'd lived with for centuries were still there, untapped and ready. They responded even now to his desire. He looked up at the dark eyes smiling down at his own.

"Hey there, master. Rise and shine." Peter might have said more, but Gabriel surged up to embrace him, for it was really and truly him.

"Oh Peter! Oh Peter! Where did you go? How did you get back? You were **_dead!_**"

He laughed. "You made me. Took you a while to figure out how."

"I… you're not real?" Gabriel was overwhelmed by the crushing realization that this could very well be another dream or some manifestation of insanity or dementia.

Peter kissed him gently. "I'm real. I've always been in your mind. It's the only place I could be. I just couldn't pull myself together."

"But... I made you?" He reached out and touched Peter's skin. It was just as he remembered and his memory had always been perfect, ever since that waitress so long ago.

"Yeah. You can make people. They were always mindless duplicates, but you could make them. Like I said, it took a while for your subconscious to figure out how to manipulate the abilities to make a new one, to heal me, and get me out of your head and into this one. The dreams helped. They made me real. They brought me back."

Gabriel hugged Peter to him again, the wheels in his mind turning and sorting and calculating. It was true – his abilities weren't limited anymore to single, specific things he could do. Some tricks were still more difficult than others, but all of reality was laid bare for him to change. Everything in it except Peter, because he'd granted his lover the same gift Peter had given him: equality.

He cleared his eyes of the tears that had inexplicably filled them. "It's a brave new world," he murmured.


	2. Graveside Visit

**A/N: All dates are taken from the end of Slave Verse 3, Bungalow Blues. This first one turned out way more creepy than I expected. Also, thanks to thewatchmaker on LJ for inspiration on Sylar visiting his mother's grave.**

_One week later_

Peter walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. Sylar noticed - he always noticed Peter's body; it was a fabulous body - and thought the other man looked more attractive with the interesting bits left to the imagination rather than openly displayed. It didn't change the sense of unquiet he'd woken with today, but it was nice to get his mind onto other things. Peter sorted through his dresser for clothes and pulled on a shirt. They shared a room and a bed, a subject that really should have elicited more comment among the White House staff, but Nathan had dealt with those issues years before. No one served him who questioned it, which made things simple for Peter and Sylar.

Peter glanced back at Sylar, who was watching him blankly. "You going to change?" Peter asked after he'd pulled on his underwear and was shaking out a pair of jeans. He didn't mean Sylar's clothes - he was already fully dressed. He meant his shape.

"No. I can't. I can't do this Nathan crap day after day, Peter. It's eating me up inside. I'm… it's hard to hang onto who I am." Sylar shuddered.

Peter didn't say anything right away. He got his jeans on and buttoned them. He took out a pair of socks and walked over to sit on the bed. "You want a day off, or do you want to call the whole thing off?"

"Just a day. Just a few hours, maybe. I feel like I might get trapped looking like _him_, like I wouldn't be able to find my way back to who I am."

"Okay," Peter said simply. He walked over and kissed Sylar on the forehead. "I'll get you a day off." He slid into his shoes and changed shape into Nathan. He shot the cuffs that were on his suddenly-present dress shirt, straightened his suit and walked out to talk to his aides. He came back shortly, dropping the charade as soon as the door closed behind him. Sylar had heard the conversation easily enough, but Peter repeated the conclusion anyway, "We have until 3."

"That should be plenty of time." He stood up.

"What do you want to do?" Peter was simply asking, not making innuendo of any kind, which was sort of refreshing. The last week had seen them getting more comfortable with each other. It looked like things might actually work out between them, but they were still getting to know each other.

Sylar stood up and walked over to him. "I want to take you somewhere, to meet someone… someone important to me, to who I am. I think that will help. Let's go grab something we can eat outdoors and then we'll go."

A little while later, Sylar slipped an arm around Peter's waist and teleported them to a place he knew well. They were under a cedar tree that had low-hanging branches, next to a stone wall. No, Peter got a better look - it was a stone building, made of marble. He glanced around and realized they were in a cemetery. "Sylar?" he questioned.

Sylar leaned over and gave Peter a peck on the cheek. "Come on. Over here." He hefted the paper bag they were using as a picnic basket and ambled out across the manicured lawn, looking between the tombstones. Peter followed silently. Sylar came to one in particular and dropped to the ground immediately, sitting cross-legged. "Hi, Mom. It's me."

Peter smiled a little and looked around, feeling awkward. The grave marker said, 'Virginia Grey' and gave dates of birth and death, adding 'Loving Mother.' A stone angel topped the marker and engraved at the bottom of it was the label, "The Angel Gabriel."

As if having an actual conversation, Sylar smiled, nodded and turned to Peter, saying, "This is Peter, Mom. He's really special to me. I wanted you to meet him." To Peter he said, "Have a seat. Say hello if you want."

"Um." Peter sat on the grass, copying Sylar's position. "Hi. Hi, Sylar's mom."

Sylar reached out and took Peter's hand, gave it a squeeze and proceeded to have a truly insane conversation about what he'd been up to in the last few weeks and how he'd finally become president like she'd always wanted him to be. It was insane in that Sylar spoke, acted like someone answered, and then spoke again, just like a normal conversation, except that he was talking to the grave of his deceased mother. Peter listened quietly. It was a good chance for him to reflect on his own many psychoses and decide that really… there was only one thing he needed to know.

When Sylar was finished 'talking' to Virginia and turned to tell Peter that, Peter asked, "Do you… understand she's not there?"

"She's in my heart, Peter. And in my mind. That's all that matters now. I know she died, if that's what you mean. And I know I'm really only talking to myself, or at least, her as I knew her. I'm not _that_ crazy. But… this is my way of remembering her and honoring her memory."

Peter swallowed and looked at the grave, thinking about how Nathan had no grave and his father's was empty. Or at least, it probably was. He'd never asked Nathan what he'd done with their father's body. He'd been a bit heavily sedated at the time. But he'd always thought that dead was dead. He knew he was supposed to believe they were in heaven or some manner of afterlife, but after all he'd seen, he couldn't believe that.

"Do you think… she's in heaven?"

"I don't know. Don't care. She's in here." Sylar tapped his forehead as if that answered it.

"I don't…" Peter shrugged, not understanding.

"I'm not a Christian… anymore, Peter. We live through each other, through our legacies, through our friends and families and works and the memories of others. That's the deeper spiritual meaning of our lives. And after we die, that's our afterlife, for however long it lasts. We never really die, or at least we're not totally gone, as long as someone remembers us, knows what we did, and… I have a really good memory."

Sylar gestured at the grave. "Of all the people I killed, she's the only one I regret. It was an accident. All the others… well, most of them anyway… were on purpose. I meant to kill. I didn't mean to kill her. I'm… sorry."

Peter looked at the grave and swallowed. Absurdly, he found himself playing along because he couldn't see how else to put it and Sylar was right - there was something deeper going on here. How someone related to the dead was spiritual by definition. "Have you told her that?"

"Yes. She's forgiven me."

Did that count? Was it real? Did it matter? Peter decided it did. He pulled over the sack for lunch and they ate slowly, talking about the people in their lives who had mattered most, who weren't around anymore.


	3. Work's Not that Important

_A few weeks later_

The screen was blank next to him, as there was no reason to squander the computer's power on a display. Sylar was monopolizing every bit of bandwidth the machine could handle, downloading it directly into his brain. It should have been too much, but instead it was just a pleasant buzz behind his eyes, consuming all of his attention.

He recalled, distantly, how he'd once spouted off to someone inconsequential about the "fact" that people only used 10% of the human brain. He'd been wrong… and right. Actually they used at most 10% _at any given time_, which was a great deal different. The human brain didn't even have the cooling system or energy stores to handle the strain of activating too many neurons at once. At the moment, Sylar suspected he was utilizing much more than than was humanly possible, but abilities allowed many things that couldn't be done.

He was looking for the pattern that would make it all make sense. It wasn't there yet. There was roughly a geographical correlation, with his target being somewhere in the Bosh-Wash corridor, but that didn't really tell him anything. There were enough outliers that he couldn't be sure even about the location thing.

Someone, or some organization, or some conspiracy of events, or even sheer coincidence, had been threatening his initial attempts to assemble the Electoral College. Sylar had imagined the group's failure was all Nathan's doing, but as it turned out, Nathan's wasn't the only hand stirring the pot. He also imagined that if he just had enough data, then it would become clear. Peter had told him he was being embarrassingly intellectual about the whole thing, but it was what Sylar was comfortable with, familiar with, so that was how he was going to do it.

As if thinking of his lover had summoned him, Sylar felt a tickle of sensation touch his knee, then creep up the inside of his thigh, a few inches at a time. He sighed. Of course. He was entirely immersed in a problem, so _of course _this was the moment Peter **had** to approach him. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the attention, and it wasn't like they didn't have mind-blowing sex nearly every day, but the pattern he'd picked up on back on the island was just as much in force now as it always was. When Peter became insecure, or jealous of how much attention Sylar might be paying to the rest of the world, then he required Sylar to have sex with him. It made it less than thrilling and more of a chore.

A nice chore, but a chore.

Sylar turned off the download and dialed his attention back to the real world. Peter had crept up on him invisibly and he still was, but it really didn't matter, as Sylar hadn't been using his physical eyes. He wouldn't have noticed him anyway, which was probably what made him irresistible.

"I want to see you," he murmured.

"Might be nice to do it invisibly sometime," Peter commented, making himself seen anyway. He was kneeling before him and to the left, naked, probably having undressed specifically for the seduction, as he _did_ usually go about clothed these days.

"Mm. But I like seeing your body. You like using powers in bed?" Sylar stood, phasing out of his clothes immediately. There seemed to be no point in dallying. The quicker he reassured Peter of his place in Sylar's heart, the quicker Sylar could get back to figuring out how to run the country.

Peter frowned a little at the rapid undressing. Sylar turned and went to his knees before him, presenting himself for Peter to top, because that was the arrangement - if Peter interrupted him, then Peter had to top. Peter ran his hand up and down his back. It felt nice, warm and good. Sylar sighed and stretched a little like a cat. He'd gotten a little stiff sitting there for so long.

He shifted his knees apart as Peter moved between them, leaning over him to reach up and rub Sylar's shoulders, earning him an appreciative groan. His hands left there eventually and traveled down his sides to his hips, then slid under him to caress his stomach and head up to his chest. He hugged Sylar to him, pressing their bodies together. Peter wasn't hard, which wasn't unusual for when he hindered Sylar's work.

Speaking of said work, Sylar considered that perhaps he needed to cross-reference with religious centers or educational facilities. There was clearly a correlation with proximity to highways, but given that major power and communication utilities followed those same corridors, it was difficult to pin down which factor was significant. Peter ran his hands up and down Sylar's chest, mouthing the skin of his back. Sylar wondered if he might be better served to set up some models of possible opposing organizations and see if the data fit any of them - perhaps backing into the data rather than deriving out of it.

Before he could do any of that though, he needed to take care of Peter, who had, for the most part, stopped moving. "What do you need me to do?" Sylar asked.

"Well, it would help if you weren't so bored by me already."

"I'm not bored of you!"

"Yes you are. I don't think you're thinking of me at all. You're probably still thinking of your work!"

"I was not!"

"You are such a terrible liar!" Not to mention that they could both detect lies. Peter leaned back and spanked Sylar on the ass, making him jump forward at the blow.

"Don't do that!" He spun and turned, so he was sitting on the floor.

"I've got to get you to pay attention to me somehow. If I wanted someone to manipulate, then I'd go buy myself a sex slave!"

"I'll show you 'sex slave'!" Sylar jumped at him, scrambling for a solid grip. They wrestled across the floor, knocking over an end table and overturning a chair before Sylar got Peter in a full nelson. Peter relaxed into the hold. He wasn't prone to deceit so Sylar was fairly sure he'd surrendered. He leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "Are you submitting?"

"Only if you'll show me who's master."

Sylar kneed Peter in the back of the legs, dropping him to his knees. He let his telekinesis creep up over Peter's body and gradually released him, still behind him, running his hands possessively up and down Peter's chest. He pulled Peter back so he was relying solely on Sylar's power to support him. With a flick of Sylar's fingers, Peter's knees spread and Peter made a small moaning sound deep in his throat at the promise of what was to come.

Sylar bit Peter on the side of the neck until he felt his teeth break the skin. Peter keened as his master pulled away, watched the spot heal, and then repeated it. "I'll hurt you whenever I want to," Sylar whispered into Peter's ear, "I'll fuck you whenever I want to." He licked up the side of Peter's face, tasting the other man and leaving a wet smear behind. Peter twitched, but he couldn't turn his head to respond.

Sylar stood and circled him slowly, admiring his lover as Peter panted, chest heaving. Just when he was starting to relax, Sylar ran phantom sensations up the inside of Peter's thighs, speeding Peter's breathing again and making him tense. He didn't know if Sylar would actually hurt him. He had before - the bites were nothing new - but there was still a lot of uncertainty about how far each was willing to go.

Sylar went to his knees in front of Peter and bent to suck at the head of his cock. Peter mewled. Sylar held him at the base. With his other hand, he waggled the fingers and another wave of sensation ran up between his legs, this time going up over his butt cheeks and to the small of his back. Peter whimpered.

"Do you like that?" Sylar asked.

"Yes, master."

"Hm." He went back to sucking the glans of Peter's penis, stroking the shaft in slow, steady motions. He didn't care what it might remind Peter of. It got him off. "I wonder if I should do it again?"

"Please, master."

Sylar repeated the motion, creating scores of butterfly touches the size of a fingertip, just a light brush of pressure, across Peter's inner thighs, buttocks and scrotum. The last made Peter clench involuntarily and breathe out, "Oh!"

Sylar ran his free hand upward, starting at Peter's knee, then up his thigh, over his hip, across his waist, over his chest and stopping at extension as he reached Peter's throat. As he did it, he created a duplicate of his motion on Peter's other side, so as to stroke the back of the leg, the butt, and up his back to rest in a light grip at the nape of his neck.

"Oh, good, oh good, oh good," Peter said.

Sylar considered punishing him for addressing him incorrectly, but he left off. After rubbing Peter's neck and then tweaking his nipples on the way down, he raised himself and stroked two fingers across Peter's cock, then over his scrotum, then around to the crack of his ass. He reached through and around to bring them all the way to the small of Peter's back. He retraced the route, fixing it in his mind.

A moment later, Peter's eyes flew wide and he gasped as he was opened through telekinesis alone. His cheeks hadn't been pulled apart - such was unnecessary. His anus was dilated just a little, enough to slip a pen into him. "Oh! Erg…" He made other inarticulate sounds and struggled against his restraints, letting his face go slack in surrender even as his body reacted reflexively.

Sylar let it go, allowing Peter to close, then he repeated the opening, making Peter squirm all over again. He dipped his head to Peter's cock again, licking it, stroking a few times and then stopping. He didn't want Peter to get too much sensation at once. He wanted to prolong his torture. No sex slave, no matter how talented, could do to Peter what Sylar could. He wondered how idle a threat that had been on Peter's part. It hardly mattered. Should Peter stray, Sylar would just kill the offender and leave Peter.

With that thought, he opened Peter wider in a sudden twist of pressure, making Peter cry out. It wasn't that he was opened all that wide - Peter's capacity was far beyond this - but that the sensation was without any of the usual physical cues. There was no friction, no feeling of skin against skin or material, no warmth and no filling. Air moved inside of Peter's body unblocked. It felt bizarre. Again, Sylar expanded and contracted the opening, finally moving it up another notch to where two fingers could have moved within him without touching the sides.

"How is that, hm?"

"Master… good, master. It's good. Will you take me?"

"You mean, will I give you enough to come?" He sucked briefly at Peter's cock again, feeling the other man straining against the telekinesis, trying to buck his hips into Sylar's mouth. He ratcheted up the opening of his body, now expanding him slightly beyond where Sylar's dick would have put him. Peter whimpered and pleaded with him, "Your body, your body, master. I want _you…_"

"No doubt you do." Sylar licked his finger and moved it inside of Peter's gaping hole, running it gently, so gently, around the ring of stretched tissue, making Peter groan loudly from that touch. He made a circle of it, then again and again. Peter's voice was becoming choked.

Sylar paused in his finger's motions and Peter gave a rough sob. "Should I give you enough?"

"Please master, please. Please. I want it."

"I don't know." Sylar leaned away, taking away all physical contact. "You threatened to get someone else to satisfy you. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe you want someone else. Maybe you're the one bored with _me._"

"No master. No! Never. I love you. I want you. Only you. I was only saying how much I wanted you more than I would ever want anyone else. I just… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His voice was changing from lust-addled to frightened. He'd made the crack about the sex slave without thinking and he was only now realizing how stupid a statement that had been. "I am so sorry. I'll do anything for you. I never want another. No one. Just you. Please… I'm sorry. Forgive me. Please forgive me."

Sylar twisted his hand and moved it in a pushing motion. Peter gasped and choked for a moment as the expansion that had previously only been at his entrance now moved within him in a ripple of pressure. It retracted a moment later, like an invisible ball moving inward and then out.

"Oh master, oh master… is it okay? Do I please you? Do you forgive me?"

"Do you promise to behave yourself?"

"Yes! Yes!"

In a very sober tone of voice, not teasing at all now, Sylar said, "Don't threaten me, Peter."

"Yes," Peter whispered. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

"I love you. I believe you." He continued the motions and shuffled himself forward, drawing Peter up and onto him, lowering him until he'd slid himself entirely within the other man, only barely touching him. Peter quivered, shaking from the strain of not being able to move, not being able to grasp or hug or touch as he wished.

Sylar gradually withdrew the telekinesis from within Peter, letting his body collapse around his shaft, then he released the rest of him, letting Peter slump forward, gasping and clutching at him, holding Sylar to him and near-sobbing in relief. Sylar shifted up and down in slow, minute movements. On only the second round of shallow thrusts, Peter came powerfully, his throat seizing up enough that he made no sound at all. Sylar nuzzled the side of his head gently. When Peter finally recovered, he made a small sound of encouragement.

Sylar shifted Peter's now totally relaxed form so his back was on the floor, lifted his hips and pounded into him fiercely, taking his body with force. He took his time about it, fucking Peter dry until he was sure the other man was sore and hurting. The friction was wonderful, hot and gripping. He felt himself coming undone after delivering a thorough hammering. He jerked Peter back up to him and bit his shoulder as he came within him.

"Now," Sylar said, breathing in Peter's ear. "Have I fucked you hard enough that you'll let me get a little work done? As I'm sure you noticed, I was kind of busy."

"Oh… I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?" he said in a tone of false innocence.

Sylar snorted. After a moment, he turned his head and kissed Peter's cheek gently and softly. "Yes, you did. But it wasn't anything really important." He nuzzled the side of Peter's face and for a moment Peter clung to him.

"Thank you," Peter said of the additional affection. "I'll let you get back to it then."

Sylar smiled warmly at him and watched Peter until he was gone. He sighed and looked back at the computer. It wasn't nearly as interesting as it had been earlier. After a minute or two of staring at it, he rose and pulled his clothes back on, then walked out after Peter to see what he was planning to do for the rest of the evening. His work could wait.


	4. Gifts You Don't Want

_December 23, that year_

Sylar leaned over the back of the couch and handed Peter a sealed envelope. It was blue and square, so probably nothing to do with business. Peter gave him a small smile and opened it. As he'd expected, it was a card. On the outside, there was a cartoon figure of a man saying, "There are a lot of things I want to do with you, but there are a few things I'll _**never**_ do…"

Peter's fingers ran up and down the card. It was thick – one of those electronic ones that played music. He opened it and inside was a sheet of 3-D film that showed a different image as he tilted it – an image of a blondish man in a sharp suit, dancing and snapping his fingers. The song began, "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you…" Peter shut it and laughed out loud. "Oh my God! I've been rick-rolled with a birthday card!"

Sylar grinned madly. He reached over and walked a couple fingers up Peter's shoulder to his neck. "We're no strangers to love… you know the rules and so do I… a full commitment's what I'm thinking of…. You wouldn't get this from any other guy."

Peter swatted his hand away. "Okay, okay, stop it. That is _**so**_ corny. I love you."

"Good!" Sylar walked around the couch and flopped on the other end. "_Someone_ didn't tell me it was their birthday today."

Peter looked at him blankly, then opened the card again and gave it a warm, heart-melting smile. After it had played all the way through, he saw Sylar was still waiting for him to say something. "Well. You found out. Thanks for the card. I like it."

"That's not all you're going to get-"

"No!"

Sylar stopped at Peter's sharp tone.

Peter swallowed and said more normally, "No. I don't want anything. I… um…" He looked around as if desperately seeking something else to talk about.

Sylar offered, "Actually, since I only found out last night, I haven't gotten you anything but that card. We could just do something together." He reached out and touched Peter's knee.

Peter pulled his knee away immediately. "No. I mean, yeah. That'd be fine. I'd like to work a puzzle with you. Or fix that clock in the hall that you said was running fast. I'd like you to show me. Or we could… um, see an action movie. Or play cards."

"Strip poker?"

"Okay, no cards then." Peter frowned at him, sure that by now Sylar had gotten the drift.

Sylar nodded slowly. He had. The strip poker comment had been a test, not serious. "I'd do anything you wanted to, Peter," he said carefully.

"Then no sex. Nothing sexual. Nothing. Please. Not today."

Sylar nodded slowly again. "Sure. There's a movie I saw advertised lately, 'something Revenge.' It looked like it had a lot of shooting. How about I see when it comes on and we can plan around that. I cleared my day for you."

Peter shifted uncomfortably and said, "Sure. Yeah."

The day went better than the morning. There were times when Peter really seemed to relax. It was odd, because he'd been happy for months – they had their ups and downs, but it was mostly up and growing together. This was the first major distancing between them. Sylar was confused by it, obsessively replaying their last bout of sex and trying to figure out what he'd done wrong. Had it been the restaurant? The candlelight? The grape jelly? Peter had seemed really into it at the time.

The next day they spent shopping and had dinner with Peter's mother. She had taken to Sylar immediately, telling him he was a long lost son and welcoming him into the family. Frankly, it had shocked him and Peter too, who hadn't introduced Sylar to her until shortly before Thanksgiving. But she seemed thrilled with him. She never asked about what had happened to Nathan, though Sylar was certain, from her silence, that she knew.

That night, Peter went to bed early. Sylar finished cleaning up and made a few calls as Nathan, making as sure as he could that the next day would be private again. He slipped into bed. Peter rolled away from him, as he had the night before. Sylar sighed in exasperation. Huffing, he turned his back and tried to go to sleep. He couldn't so eventually he got up and went to the couch.

He woke to Peter kissing his hand, one finger at a time, kneeling next to the couch. There was a cup of coffee on the low table behind him.

"Oh, Peter," Sylar smiled and ran his hand up to cup the side of his lover's face.

Peter smiled mischievously even as he pulled away from the hand. "You know, I quit believing in Santa a long time ago, but this morning I come down here and what do I find lying on the couch for me, very nearly left under the tree?" He leaned in and kissed Sylar's cheek, then the tip of his nose.

Sylar tried to capture his mouth, but Peter pulled away again. "No. Morning breath. And besides, I want this to be another no-sex day."

_Like morning breath has ever put Peter off in the past,_ Sylar thought to himself. But he said, "Okay." Sylar looked past him and carefully levitated the coffee over to himself. He sat up and sipped, watching Peter over the cup. Peter had gone over to the tree. They didn't have many gifts. Nathan's family was spending the day with Heidi's parents. Sylar had to admit to a certain attraction to the idea of plundering everything Nathan had had, but Peter had asked him not to, so he hadn't.

He _had_ made it clear to Heidi that her husband was gone and if she knew what was good for her she'd play along. She hadn't objected. Her marriage to Nathan had been merely for show for the last decade. One of Nathan's aides, who was apparently assigned to watch for things like this, had noted that she seemed to have taken a lover in the last few months. Sylar could not have cared less. He'd found more important things for that aide to keep track of.

Peter brought him his gifts and he unwrapped them quietly, matching Peter's own solemnity. He'd decided the day before that Peter wasn't angry with _him_. It was something else. It wasn't like he was with him solely for the sex, but the withdrawal wasn't just of sex. Peter would touch him, but he was reluctant to allow himself to be touched. It was frustrating.

Sylar had had some pretty lousy Christmases, but he'd expected this one to be different. He'd expected warmth and frivolity and gayness. Peter was so childish sometimes, that Sylar had thought this would be a bigger deal to him. When everything was unwrapped and set aside and they were enjoying some cinnamon rolls for a late breakfast, Sylar asked, "What happened to you at Christmas?"

Peter's eyes darted. "Nothing," he lied.

"Hm. Really." Sylar sipped his coffee, letting the sarcasm hang in the air.

Peter fidgeted with his hands. "On… a few years ago, on my birthday, Nathan had a guy fuck me for every year old I was."

Sylar's mouth dropped open, remembering distantly when Peter had told him he'd had sex a lot more times in a day than four. He was in his late 30s.

Peter went on, "Then on Christmas, he showed me the film he'd had them make of it. Like that was my present. To see that." He put his head down, then suddenly stood. He looked at Sylar, a penetrating gaze, assessing and cautious. He took two very careful steps to him and lowered himself to the couch, never breaking eye contact until the end, when he finally dropped his eyes and leaned in.

Sylar had seen Peter do this once before and he hadn't known how to react then. This time he knew. He put his arms around his lover and comforted him. Peter relaxed slowly against him because he wanted so badly to be able to trust Sylar. He could.

"How… how did he even begin to think that was a good idea?" Sylar asked after he had held him for a while. He was truly at a loss.

"I don't know." Peter shrugged against him. "We'd done a lot of other things. When I was younger, things like that were pretty fun. Well… not that many. But still… I was having a hard time doing things with him so I told him I liked to take it more than I liked to do it and I think… I guess he just got carried away."

"Could… were you able to tell him no?"

Peter stiffened, "Sort of."

"It's okay," Sylar tried to sooth him and Peter relaxed, drawing more from his desire to calm him than from the motions themselves.

"He didn't want me to say no. He told me not to. He'd… gone to… a lot of trouble… It's… I could have said no, anyway. I didn't. It's…" He buried his face against Sylar's shoulder and said something that might have been, "It's complicated."

Sylar considered that if Peter was working under orders to obey Nathan, then refusing his express desires was likely to be difficult. He wondered if Nathan had even realized how much he was twisting Peter up inside. He suspected he hadn't. It made Sylar consider how he'd had to extract Peter's true feelings using an ability Nathan didn't have access to. He kissed the side of Peter's head. "I truly hope he died really slowly and painfully," Sylar growled, hugging Peter firmly.

Peter smiled against him. "I like you being protective of me."

Sylar just growled more literally and kissed the top of Peter's head, thinking dark thoughts about Nathan.


	5. Voyeurs and Frottage

_Thirty years later_

Peter climbed on top of Sylar, pressing him down into the sofa, running his hands up under the other man's shirt, then bringing them back down with his nails curled to bite into Sylar's flesh. He cried out and arched under Peter, who unfastened his pants and pulled him out.

_Oh yes, please Peter…_

_You want me to suck you?_

_I don't care, I don't care, just your touch, I love your touch, your hands, your… I like looking at your face. Stay where I can see your face._

Peter shifted further up Sylar's body, kissing him deeply, sloppily, then down the side of his face, biting and chewing, pulling on the skin of his cheek as he humped into him. Sylar pushed down Peter's sweat pants and fondled him gently, bringing Peter's shaft into contact with his own and watching his lover's expression.

_Oh, you're so hot, your skin is so hot there, _Peter projected into his mind. He eased back to bring their groins more in line with one another.

Sylar wrapped his long fingers around both of them, stroking up and down slowly, smearing their precum over them. Peter spat and added his hand at the top, cupping their tips. Sylar whined and groaned, shifting his hips up into their hands. He leaned forward and kissed Peter's forehead.

_I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you so much, so much, Peter!_

"Oh," said a feminine voice. Both of them froze and their heads snapped around as one. There was only one lamp on in the room, but it was close enough to make it clear what the two of them were doing. Peter's wife stood at the entrance to the hall. Sylar jerked his hand away from their frotting.

"Um… hi honey," Peter said. Maddeningly, his hand slipped down from the top and took up the position Sylar's had just vacated.

_Peter? You're not stopping._

_Nope. You said the only way you'd approve of the marriage is if it didn't affect us._

_There's a difference between 'doesn't affect us' and doing it in front of her._

"Hi," she said, blushing furiously. "I… uh… I heard something and I thought it was… I thought Alicia must have woke up."

"Nope. She's in bed. I checked first," Peter said reasonably. His hand stroked up and down, the motion perfectly obvious. Sylar turned his face away, the tension in the situation making it seem like he was about to burst. _Peter, I am so fucking close._

_I__** know**__. That is awesome. You ought to look at her, use the aura sight. She's turned on by this._

_I'm too embarrassed to look at her… Peter… I've never been into doing it front of people. You know that._ His erection was starting to flag a bit, so Peter picked up the pace, jerking harder, putting his body into the motion as well. Sylar bit his lip and stifled a whine, his previous state of arousal coming back full force.

"I'll… go back to bed then."

"Yep, see you later, sweetheart," Peter said cheerfully, carrying on without interruption as she left. He bent to bite Sylar's collarbone and trail a line of kisses down as far as his shirt would allow. He sucked hard enough to give him a hickey, though it faded immediately.

_Oh! I'm… there!_ Sylar's come coated his hand with two irregular spurts shooting up between them.

Peter laughed, smeared himself in it and fucked himself directly against Sylar's body, rubbing his tip until he came as well.

_You're going to go see her now?_

_Not right away, but yeah, eventually_. Peter leaned up to kiss him. _Just so you know, you're always first in my heart_.

_None of that 'they're all equal in my heart' bullshit?_

_Nope. No one equals you, master._


	6. Giving Thanks

_Fifty years later_

Peter was frazzled, rushing around the kitchen in a tizzy as he was every year at this time. Thanksgiving, and the fourth of July, were the big gatherings of the family. Through long practice, Gabriel knew to stay close, but out of his way, and be helpful when he could. At the moment he was mashing the potatoes and watching while Peter fussed over the green beans.

"Are the sweet potatoes done yet?" Peter asked.

"Yes, they're in the warming oven now."

"Okay, then I can put the rolls in to finish… Where are the rolls? They were just out here!"

"They're sitting in the pantry on a shelf. They were in the way on the counter."

Peter grumbled something that didn't make it to being fully vocalized, and Gabriel knew it was a nonsensical complaint that the rolls weren't exactly where Peter wanted them to be and that was Gabriel's fault. He didn't mean it; Gabriel knew that. Peter pulled the rolls out, smelled of them, eyed them closely and decided they would pass muster. They went in the oven. He set the timer and went back to the beans.

"Nate," Gabriel said, "if you put those olives on your fingers, you have to eat them. You can't just leave them in Aunt Xena's chair when you're done with them. No one likes sitting on olives."

The four year old grinned at him and ate one of the aforementioned olives, to prove his good intentions.

_I can't get over how much he looks just like you, Peter._

_Yeah, I wish they hadn't named him Nathan though._

_They never knew him as anything but the president over a very difficult time. He's a hero in some circles._

_He was a jerk._

_I know. But little Nate looks so adorable. No one who looks so much like you could possibly be a jerk._

There was a grumble of static and mixed emotions. Peter added a little more onion powder to the beans, mixed and tasted.

"So, are you guys talking to each other in your heads again?" Claire asked from the doorway, having watched them working silently for a while.

She was greeted with "Oh, hi Claire!" and "Hey, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine. We made it." She sighed and held up a foil wrapped dish in each hand. "So where do you want the pies? I have pecan and coconut meringue. You said Alicia was handling the pumpkin?"

"Yes," Gabriel said, taking one from her. "Over here. And make sure to slide it back far enough so that Nate here doesn't get his fingers into them."

"Oh! Little Nate!" Claire scooped him up with an effort. "Wow, you're getting so big! Almost too big for me to pick up!"

"You're short," Nate said. "I'm gonna be talla than you!"

"Yes, I'm sure you will be," Claire said. "Now, pay attention. I'm going to show you a secret."

Gabriel smirked as he got out the cream for the potatoes and listened as Claire showed Nate how to hook his finger under the exposed edge of the meringue and scoop out a tiny bit of it.

"Claire, stop that," Peter said. "I haven't forgotten when you taught Alicia to make motorboat noises."

She laughed. "Oh, like that was a big deal!"

"It was a big deal because you taught her to do that with her _food!_ It went _everywhere!_ Do you know how hard it is to clean baby food off of _everything?_ We had to feed her on a plastic sheet!"

Claire giggled wickedly and shifted Nate on her hip. She pulled out the whipped topping from the fridge and went back to the pies.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked suspiciously.

"I'm helping with the pies. They'll look prettier with topping on them."

Peter grumbled and checked on the rolls, nervous they might overcook.

Gabriel watched as Claire took the opportunity to spoon out a bite from the center of the pumpkin pie and share it with Nate, then she covered the spot, filling it in with whipped topping and pulling it to a peak. Gabriel chortled and turned back to spooning the potatoes into a serving bowl.

_What's so funny?_ Peter asked, detecting the humor, if not the cause.

_Nothing. Nothing._

_Liar._

_Well, that's true at least._

_Where's the salt?_

"Oh, I just used the last of it in the potatoes."

"What?" Peter squawked. "I need it for the green beans!" He pawed through the spice cabinet. "We don't have any more? We're supposed to have more! We agreed! Whoever opened the last container of salt, they'd put it on the grocery list and we'd buy a new one, that way we'd never run out. I didn't open the last container, so that means you did. Why didn't you buy more salt? You knew we'd need it."

Gabriel walked over to an angry, accusing Peter and kissed him lightly on the cheek. The touch dispelled the mood instantly. Peter put his head down on Gabriel's shoulder, hands on his hips. _Why do I always get so worked up at the holidays?_

_I don't know. Christmas is always quiet - just you and me. I think you get excited about having everyone here. Listen, I just finished with the potatoes. I'm sure there's some over at Noah's house. I'll pop over there and get it and come right back._

_We're not supposed to use powers today._

_We're talking to each other mentally, Peter._

_That's not the same thing. It's like regeneration. If you want to stop it, you have to do it intentionally. Teleportation is different._

_Uh-huh._ The sarcasm came through in his thought.

Peter laughed.

"You're doing that thing again," Claire observed. "How much salt do you need, anyway? How about we just get some out of the salt shakers?"

Peter nodded, "Yes. That will work. Thanks, Claire."

She nodded and went out to the dining room, coming back with a salt shaker and without Nate.

"How's Gretch doing?" Gabriel asked.

Claire's voice turned sad. "She gets so tired. The injections are helping though."

"How often is she taking those?" Peter asked, called away by the beeping of the oven, telling him the rolls were done. He pulled them out.

Claire answered, "Just once a month, but we might start doing it every couple of weeks."

Noah, Peter's only son and Nate's father, stuck his head in the door. "Everything set?"

Gabriel smiled. "Yep. Go get those beans and I'll get the mashed potatoes. Claire, can you get the sweet potatoes?"

"And don't forget to take back the salt!" Peter said, brushing the tops of the rolls with butter and dropping them into a basket.

Minutes later, everyone settled around the table and bowed their heads as Peter asked for the Lord's blessing and gave thanks that they could all be together with their loved ones. "Because in the end," Peter said, "all that matters is love."


	7. Fishing

**A/N: Couple reminders - if you reached this chapter, or "Giving Thanks" by use of the 'last chapter posted' button, you might take note that there are four chapters between the first and Giving Thanks. I posted five chapters in as many minutes, so unless you're getting alert notifications, it might be easy to miss. I can see from the site traffic report that a lot of people hit the first chapter, then the last, and none in between. So… just FYI.**

**I would also like to point out that last week I added additional material to the ending of the first chapter. No alert would have gone out for that, so here's your notice.**

**Italics are mental conversation. Peter and Sylar (now going by Gabriel) share a permanent (at this point) mental link that allows easy telepathy and sharing of information. As time has passed, they have grown to use it more and more.**

**And thanks to Dragontrybe for the kind reviews. I'd say more, especially about the review for chapter 6, but not as a public statement (getting an account at FFn is easy and straightforward). I've survived too.**

**Oh, and I have no idea why this chapter turned out so freaking long. The voices in my head just kept talking to each other!**

_Sixty years_

They sat in boat that was modestly sized for personal use, floating on one of the finger lakes in northwestern New York state. The three men in the vessel pretty much filled it to capacity. They had to be careful not to get in each other's way. Peter and Gabriel avoided fouling one another with preternatural ease. Simon, Peter's nephew and his brother Nathan's oldest son, did not share in this.

"Crap!" he exclaimed as he managed to get one of his fishing poles tangled with one of Gabriel's.

"Just… stop it, okay? Stop. Stop moving it." Gabriel's voice was steady and he didn't put any ability behind it, but Simon still pulled back from him as if he had. Peter glanced over at what had amounted to a flinch, but didn't say anything. Gabriel used telekinesis to unravel the tangled lines quickly and without requiring either pole to be reeled in.

"Thanks," Simon said grudgingly. He was nearing eighty years old. To an outsider, it probably looked like a grandfather fishing with two grandsons, as Peter and Gabriel still looked like they were in their early 30s. Simon had taken more after his father than Monty had, with lighter hair, chiseled features, flexible morals and lots of ambition. He'd gone far in the government, riding on his family name.

Peter's side of the family, and Nathan's, had stayed divided for most of forty years after Nathan's death. It was only in the last generation that they'd started associating again. Today they were having a Petrelli family reunion. All the descendents of Tim and Arthur were invited, though Nathan's and Peter's families were the best represented. The fishing trip had been Simon's idea, trying to mend fences after his outburst yesterday about the "freaks that polluted the Petrelli family line."

It had been Gabriel who had stopped Peter from blurting out in response that Simon's cherished father had possessed one of these "freakish" abilities. Monty had had one as well and carried the secret of it to his grave. Those with abilities who had managed to avoid being caught up in Nathan's presidential persecution rarely made themselves known. Since the trait was mainly genetic and a large part of Nathan's purge had involved sterilization, the incidence of specials in humanity had been greatly reduced.

Gabriel, Peter and Claire were among the few who had made themselves public. It wasn't Peter's or Gabriel's idea. Claire had made herself known within a year of Nathan's faux death by plane crash, staged by Gabriel. As the president's daughter, she thought she had enough political clout to make a statement about the reintegration of slaves into society and perhaps make strides towards ending discrimination against former slaves.

She'd had her ability to survive death put the test and in rescuing her, Peter's abilities had become public. Gabriel revealed himself in order to protect Peter. When it was clear that they were facing something stronger than a girl who could heal, and instead not just one, but two _arsenals_ of abilities in the form of Peter and Gabriel, those insistent on continuing Nathan's policies against specials found it healthier to do something else with their time. Those few brave enough to rail against them chose their words carefully, lest they be chosen for them.

The fearful public and politicians representing it still shut down the artificial creation of abilities. The serum surfaced anyway on the black market, here and there, just enough so that the police and the media and the conservative forces felt justified in harassing anyone who had abilities, always casting doubt and implying they'd gained them through illicit means and not mere birth. That was the popular rumor about Peter - that he was the result of one of Nathan's and Mohinder's programs that went far beyond the super-soldier, goon squad artificial abilities, and instead had granted him a multiplicity of abilities. They called it the God Program.

Peter had never bothered to correct them on that, disturbing as the implication was.

Peter was still angry about Simon's words. "Freak" had always been one of his hot buttons. He'd steamed about it off and on since the words left Simon's mouth. That Gabriel was sitting between them on the boat wasn't an accident.

Peter picked up one of his two poles and gave it a quick jerk, then reeled it in with a medium-sized fish.

"Good one, Pete," Simon said.

Peter bristled inside. Gabriel projected to him, _He's trying to be nice._

_I'd rather he called me Peter._

_Then you should tell him that sometime, rather than just getting angry at him every time he calls you Pete._ Peter turned and looked at Simon, opening his mouth. Gabriel cut in, _Don't tell him right now! Wait until things have smoothed over._

Peter told Simon, "Thanks," and tossed the fish in the live well.

Simon nodded and said gruffly, "How deep were you fishing?"

"About thirty feet," Peter said, equally grudging in tone.

"I didn't think the water was that deep here," Simon said archly.

_He's calling me a liar!_ Peter complained mentally to Gabriel.

Gabriel shifted to the side of the boat and leaned over as Peter automatically and immediately shifted to the other side to balance him. Peter retrieved a minnow from the minnow bucket as Gabriel looked and said, "No, the bottom's about thirty-two, thirty-three feet here."

"Really?" Simon said. "You can see that?"

_Now he's calling __**you**__ a liar,_ Peter thought sourly, making sure his tackle was still in order. He dropped the line over the side of the boat.

_Be nice,_ Gabriel told him. To Simon he said, "Yep."

_I'm enjoying being angry at him_, Peter mused, watching the fishing line play out. _You know if you weren't here mediating, I'd be having to give in and do it myself. That's kind of perverse, isn't it? I would have probably already made up with him if you weren't trying to help._

_I'm aware of that, Peter. But has it occurred to you that letting you be angry might be as important as letting you be happy?_

_No. Do you think that's true?_

_I'm still here mediating, aren't I?_

_Huh. I'll have to think about that one._

Simon had no idea of their exchange. He asked Gabriel, "Can you see the fish too?"

"Yep."

A note of real interest crept in over the doubt and disbelief. It wasn't like he didn't know they both had a slew of powers. "How many are down there?"

Gabriel looked again and Peter shifted to the other side once more as though they'd choreographed it. This time Simon noticed, but there wasn't anything to say about it. He just experienced a moment of being creeped out - not that uncle Peter and his partner Gabriel didn't already creep him out a lot. Gabriel said, "Seven right at the moment."

"And they're all down there nearly on the bottom, huh?"

"Yep."

"Wow. That must make it real easy to fish, since you can just see right where they are." He was caught between admiration and sarcasm.

_Not as easy as it would be if I told the fish to jump in the boat and spare us the trouble,_ Peter grumped mentally.

Gabriel grinned, mostly at Peter's suggestion. "Yeah, but that's not the point of fishing, is it?"

Simon eyed him for a moment, suspicious. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if we just wanted to get fish, then we'd go to the grocery store, wouldn't we?"

Simon nodded and relaxed a little. He'd feared Gabriel was being patronizing, or bringing attention to the fact that Simon had inviting them fishing as a goodwill gesture, trying to make up for his faux pas the day before. His ego was too sensitive to handle that being pointed out directly.

Gabriel shrugged and picked up one of his poles, watching as the bobber moved erratically. After a moment of observation he decided it was just wave action. "Or we'd use commercial fishing methods."

Simon laughed a little. "In the old days, when they wanted to cheat they used dynamite. Sometimes lights. Hey, can you get me another beer?"

"Sure." _See, he's warming to me already_. Gabriel retrieved a beer from the cooler and handed it over.

_Everyone loves you, Gabriel._

_Yeah, hard to believe I used to spend my days looking for someone to cut the top of their head off of._

Peter snorted. Simon looked at him, then took a long pull from his beer. He said, "So, for you two, whaddaya do when you go fishing? Do you just not use your powers?"

Gabriel gave him a sly smile. "Well, not until we get desperate."

_Usually we go out in the boat and fuck, then come back with fish,_ Peter provided to Gabriel, along with helpful accompanying images.

_That's because you're so much more interesting than fishing, Peter._

Peter felt a gentle warmth suffuse through him as Gabriel sent along his feelings with the words. _That's nice of you to say._ Peter sighed happily and looked off at the shore, where various relatives of his were playing in the water.

Simon laughed though at the implication of cheating as a last resort. That was something he could understand, as well as the implication that they didn't always succeed without using their abilities. As though that revelation of mortality had forged a tenuous link of trust between them, Simon worked himself up to asking something more dangerous. "You know, there's something I wonder about with you two…" Gabriel looked at him, raising his brows in invitation. "You can just tell people what to do and make them do it, right?"

Gabriel looked back over at his bobber, which was acting weird again without any accompanying wave action. _Are you using telekinesis to move my bobber, Peter?_ "Yes, we can."

_No. You've probably got a fish._

_Hm._ He looked down, focusing through the side of the boat and through the water. A fish had indeed taken an interest in his bait, but it was just hanging in the water near it at the moment, as though trying to decide if it really wanted to eat this particular minnow.

"Then why don't you?" Simon asked.

Gabriel watched as the fish made up its fishy mind and went upwards, well out of the depth where the others were, to immediately swallow Simon's bait. _Did you see that?_ he thought to Peter.

_No, what?_

_That stupid fish turned up it's nose at my bait and went for Simon's!_

"Oh, I think I've got one!" Simon said cheerfully, giving his pole a yank and beginning to reel it in.

_Huh. Well, good for him._ Peter turned to show a polite interest in the new catch and congratulated his nephew. He held open the live well and Simon tossed it in from across the boat with a practiced flip.

"I guess even someone without any abilities can catch a fish every now and then, eh?" Simon gloated a bit.

Gabriel nodded agreeably. Peter went back to minding his poles and watching the kids on the shore. Gabriel said, "You remember the end of slavery, don't you?"

Simon nodded, struggling to catch a minnow out of the bucket. They were quick little buggers.

"What do you remember of the reasons they gave for ending it?"

Simon finally got one of the tiny fish and hooked it. He tossed in the line a moment later. "Oh, the usual stuff - how it degraded people, was cruel, made the slave-owners less human, upset the economy, set the stage for a rebellion, that sort of thing." He cocked his head. "You're saying that's why you don't use your powers on people all the time?"

"Pretty much," Peter supplied, one of the first things he'd said in the conversation.

Each of the three men was silent for a while, mulling over their individual thoughts.

Finally Simon said, "I know they talked about all those moral reasons, but I always thought the real reason they abolished it was the population thing. You know, the inheritability of slave status. Because it's one thing to enslave someone for a crime, like robbery or taking drugs or whatever, but it's another thing to say their kids will be slaves because the parents were. That just… it changes the whole thing from punitive, a sort of expanded penal operation you see, and into… I don't know, an underclass, a slave class."

Simon went on, warming to the subject, "And I know they tried to address that for a while by sterilizing all the slaves, but that just meant the population nose-dived. Everyone was in agreement at first that slaves didn't need to be having kids, but then ten years into the program, there were so many slaves out there and so many of the people who'd been enslaved anyway were usually young folks, immigrants, the poor - the exact same groups of society who had the highest birth rates."

Peter thought, _Like they didn't see the connection between struggling to find your way in the world and the higher crime rate among those groups? Slavery wasn't the answer. Why do people reach for punishment before help?_

_Old news, Peter_, was Gabriel's response. _Why do you want to hurt Simon instead of helping him understand?_

_He doesn't want to understand. And anyway, he annoys me._

_He reminds you of Nathan._

_That too._

Simon kept talking, "Then they tried to fix it by letting the slaves have kids and that was just a disaster. The prices on slaves hit rock bottom. No one wanted to buy a slave who wasn't sterilized unless they wanted them as a breeder and that caused it's own problems with people bilking the government for the subsidies for the children of slaves… I mean, it was just a mess. Personally I think the big economic boom we saw after slavery ended was because we'd sterilized half the population for an entire generation."

Peter continued watching his bobber fixedly. _He would think that was a good thing, wouldn't he?_

_He didn't say it was a good thing - he just said that was probably the cause of the economic boom. And it was. You know that. We had all kinds of resources and fewer people sharing them._ Out loud, Gabriel said, "Assuming the moral reasons aren't enough for you, there are practical reasons for us to not use our abilities constantly. It disrupts things just like slavery did, just like if we used our abilities here to catch all the fish in the lake."

Simon mulled that over. "I still sort of feel like I'm here on your sufferance."

"You are," Peter said with a grunt.

"Peter! That's out of line." Gabriel's voice was sharp. His mental voice was not: _I'm getting onto you for his benefit._

_I know._ "Sorry."

Simon looked back and forth between the two of them. "What do you two do between you?"

"What?" Gabriel was a little thrown. There were so many things that could mean.

Peter chortled in his head and suggested in a patronizing, sing-song voice, _Well, when a man and a man love each other very, very much…_

_Hush, he's being serious. You really are in a mood today, you know that?_

Simon said, "When you two disagree. What do you do? You both have the same powers, right?"

Peter continued the mental conversation uninterrupted, _Oh, you love me anyway._

_Yes, I do, but I'm happier when you have your head out of your ass. Did you hear what he was trying to ask? How appropriate._

Gabriel laughed. Peter smiled. Gabriel said, "We have rules. No abilities when we argue. And we do - argue, that is."

Quietly, but well enough to carry across the boat, Peter said, "It helps that we have abilities to understand where each other is coming from and what we really want."

"And that we want to be together," Gabriel added. "It… that sort of forces a compromise."

"Huh," Simon said. "You never have anything you want more than staying together?"

Gabriel looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Um… no?" He scanned Simon's thoughts. There were all manner of things Simon wanted more than being with his second wife, 'his own way' foremost among them. _Ha_, Gabriel thought to Peter. _I've never had my own way with you. Even the very first time didn't go like I wanted it. I guess I've gotten used to letting you call the shots._

_Letting __**me**__ call the shots? You bought me as a slave, Gabriel! The only thing I've ever gotten my way on was having a family and that was only after a pile of conditions!_

_Oh, I'll _condition_ you…_

Peter shifted as a telekinetic stroke passed up his spine and lightly ruffled the hair on the back of his head. He reached back and smoothed his hair down again. "I think we both know we'd be hopeless apart. Besides," he shrugged, "there's no one else who can dish my shit right back to me if I get carried away."

Gabriel snorted. _Like that's going to happen. You're always the one who escalates._

_Oh right, because if you pull out powers it's an accident._ Peter's mental sarcasm was clear.

_It is! When you do it, it's intentional._

_And a response to one of your 'accidents!'_

Gabriel was silent, flicking through his memories of various arguments and fights they'd had. There were a few times when Peter had slipped, but in general he was right. _Okay, fine._

_What, I win?  
_

_Yes, you win._

_I am so awesome. Oh! I've got a fish! Even the fish think I'm awesome!_ Peter gave the pole a yank, but missed it somehow. The hook came up empty. "Dangit."

Gabriel snickered in his head.

"Missed it, huh?" Simon observed.

"Yeah," Peter said glumly, reaching for more bait.

"Well, it's nice to know it doesn't always work the way you want it to."

Peter looked at Simon for a moment and then smiled, letting some of his anger slip away. "Hey love, gimme a beer, would you?"

Gabriel handed one over and blew a kiss at Peter, who returned it.

Peter said, "Things don't work out the way I want them to just because I have a lot of powers. For one thing, I have to be paying attention - I can be caught by surprise, for example. For another, I have to have a power or an ability that can make the change I want. For a third, I have to know what change that is - I don't just know automatically what the best thing to do is. Gabriel's always been smarter at that than I am."

Gabriel gave him what amounted to a mental snort.

_You are, baby_, Peter responded.

_Don't 'baby' me. You know I don't like that._

_Oh, coochie-coo. Hey, do you know your bobber has been under water for seconds now?_

_What?_ Gabriel jumped at his pole.

Peter laughed and went on without much interruption in what he'd been saying, "And then assuming I have all that, then yeah, I can use a power to force things. But it doesn't let me control the consequences and a lot of times those are a lot bigger than whatever it was I was trying to fix to start with."

They watched as Gabriel hauled in the biggest fish they'd caught so far.

"Well, would you look at that?" Simon said. "Is that the biggest one down there?"

Peter eyed the bottom of the boat, brow furrowed. Gabriel said, "It wasn't down there when I looked before. They move around, after all."

Peter said, "It's kind of hard to tell, but there's another at least the same size. Oh, and Simon, you don't have any bait on your hook anymore."

"I don't? Oh. You can see right through the bottom of the boat?" Peter nodded. Simon reeled up and fixed his line. "Thanks," he offered.

"No problem."

_That was nice of you,_ Gabriel thought.

_See? I can behave myself. I don't always want to kill my relatives._

_No, just the ones that remind you of Nathan. All the rest you just want to mind-control into obedience._ He was joking, of course, but Peter did find his family frustrating at times, and not just the teenagers.

"I probably shouldn't have said what I did yesterday," Simon said out of the blue a few minutes later.

_Is that an apology?_ Peter thought. Out loud he said, "We're all Petrellis here."

_I am not,_ Gabriel thought.

_You are by marriage._

_We're not married._ Gabriel added a mental sniff to it.

_We are too. Shut up,_ Peter chided telepathically.

_Are not._

_You're silly._

_You're childish._

"Yes, we are," Simon said and sighed. "I suppose if it really is genetic like they say it is, then it's something we all have to live with."

_Like it's a burden. Christ_, Peter thought.

"True," Gabriel said. "Calling someone a freak was probably a little over the top, though, don't you think?"

Simon bristled a little. "I didn't call anyone a freak!"

"No, of course not," Gabriel soothed.

Simon went on like he hadn't spoken. "I said it was a freakish ability and it is. It's not _normal_."

_Calm down, Peter._

_I didn't say anything._

_Yeah, but I know you._

_I'm not doing anything here._ His mental tone was tense and the lack of feedback through the link - the mental silence he was giving off - was a clearer indicator to Gabriel than if he'd been yelling.

_Well, then keep doing that._ Aloud Gabriel said, "Regardless of how common it is, it happens to be something some members of the family have."

Simon huffed and said nothing, pulling up one of his lines as if suspecting he had a bite. He didn't. He fussed with it a bit and dropped the line back in. "Like a birth defect," he muttered, clearly audible.

"That's not fair, or polite," Gabriel said with a warning tone.

Simon glanced over at him with narrowed eyes. Gabriel had been the nice one thus far. Peter's end of the mental link was dead silent.

"You're right," Simon said. "I'm sorry."

Gabriel exhaled in relief at the admission.

Simon had to add though, "It's just that… this thing has really changed the family and how we turned out. Anyone hears my last name and they don't think of my father, they think of _him_," he said, hooking a thumb at Peter.

_Jealousy_, Peter thought, along with, _A-ha. __**Now**__ it makes sense_.

"And my father was one of the greatest presidents we ever had!"

Peter coughed. When Simon looked over at him, he smiled weakly and said, "I think I swallowed a bug," and coughed again.

Gabriel expressed his humor mentally and kept a straight face. "He's remembered well, that's true."

Peter interjected, _Sometimes I wish we'd made it clear what a bastard he was before staging his death. I never expected this fucking martyr crap to follow him for decades!_

_Peter, one of the traits of your family is a nearly supernatural charisma. Nathan had it just as you do._

Simon shrugged. "Yeah, he left a good legacy, getting all that straightened out before he… before the end."

Gabriel and Peter both perked up. Nathan's death had been set up as an accident - a tragic accident. Gabriel said cautiously, "You… say that like you think maybe he was taking care of his affairs."

Simon was quiet for a moment. "Yeah. Yeah, I think that's exactly what happened. He wasn't the same that last year." He glanced over uneasily at Peter. "He… after you got caught, he went crazy. He never recovered, as far as I could tell. He was weird, after that, and I didn't see him much. He wrapped everything up though, made all those sweeping changes, presided over the election, and then boom. Dead. I don't think it was an accident. I think he couldn't stand the idea of what had happened to his own flesh and blood."

Gabriel tilted his head slightly and lifted his brows for a moment. "Well, put that way… maybe you're right."

Simon gave himself a little shake and looked over at Peter. "I've researched him… and you know this better than I do, I know, but I never had a chance to talk to you about it… when he was running for election as a senator, he talked about your suicide attempt. And then there was granddad, and how he went. I suppose what I should be more surprised about is how no one ever questioned it."

"There were some questions," Peter murmured, just loud enough to be heard. "We took care of them. I didn't want anyone to think that of him."

"Because of… because of how he used your suicide attempt for his election?"

"Yeah," Peter said, looking blankly out across the lake. He wasn't angry at Simon anymore. The emotion was gone with the realization that Simon just wanted to think the best of his father and had been stewing for all these decades on the thought that it was losing Peter that had driven Nathan to reverse so many of his policies and then kill himself. Simon was so wrong about so many things, but he was only able to work with the information available to him.

Peter exhaled and said, "Your father… I knew him better than anyone else did. He would have been proud of you."

Simon smiled. "Thanks for that. Obviously you meant the world to him." He nodded to himself and went back to fishing. The three men spent the remainder of their outing in a comfortable quiet, having put the wrongs of the past behind them.


	8. Geezer sex

_One hundred years_

Gabriel crawled onto the bed and flopped down, clad in pajama pants. Peter put aside his book and admired Gabriel's back. _Too tired to do anything?_

_Never._

_You lie all the time_. He teased - there was no heat to his accusation. _After all that work on the farms… you've been at it for days._

Gabriel smiled and rolled over onto his side. _Mm. Yeah. _He changed the subject. He didn't even want to _think_ about agriculture anymore. _Did I ever tell you why I'm so good with clocks and stuff?_

Peter smiled back at him, detecting that this was a joke. _No, tell me_.

_You see, I'm related to Pinocchio, the little clockwork toy who became a real boy. He grew up into a man and had kids._

_Uh-huh_?

Gabriel pushed his pajama bottoms down past his hips and began to stroke himself. _Yeah, but you see, for me at least, when I tell a lie, it's not my __**nose**__ that grows._

Peter laughed.

_Ah, I just need to think of the right lies to tell. Hm… You don't turn me on. I don't enjoy being with you. I don't think you're handsome. I'm too tired to have sex tonight. Oh, look._ He looked down at himself in mock surprise_. It's getting longer! Harder too. Might have to do something about that. You'll help me, right?_

Peter laughed again. _Of course. How many times have we had sex already?_

Gabriel's hand paused, then resumed a bit more slowly. His eyes tracked back and forth.

_I wasn't serious! Don't count them. You'll be here all night!_

_Yeah, but…_ He had a perfect memory, but information that extensive took a while to access. Just because he _could_ remember all the times didn't mean he kept a running tally of them. _ Do you count times when we just jerked each other off?_

_Yes. You don't have to give me a number, really._ Peter's hand slipped over Gabriel's, his light touch caressing the skin not covered by the other man's hand.

_What about times when we jerked ourselves off and only watched each other, or only used abilities to touch each other?_

_God, you intellectualize everything! Yes._

_Okay. You __**are**__ the one who asked, Peter. What about when we were on the phone or in mental contact?_

_I don't need a number, okay? But yes._

_All right. How about in dreams?_

_Of course._

_Well, you know, that's not necessarily automatic. What about times when one of us jerked off while with the other, but the other didn't know it?_

_How many times did that happen?_

_At least seventy-two on my part. I don't know yours, obviously._

Peter snorted. _Well, it doesn't count if the other one wasn't at least __**aware**__ of it._

_Okay, fair enough. Hm._ His mind worked for a minute while he continued to stroke himself. Peter lay down on the bed, putting his face closer to Gabriel's groin, lining himself up for sixty-nine. Peter swiped his tongue across the tip. Gabriel's motions slowed, allowing Peter to suck at him without moving himself too much for it. His hand strayed from his cock to Peter's cheek, then threaded gently through his hair_. Oh, Peter. I love you._

_I thought you were going to give me a number? Don't tell me I played twenty questions just for you to get distracted as soon as I got down here._

_You touching me always distracts me. But… around fifteen thousand times, give or take a thousand_.

Peter choked, which had nothing to do with Gabriel's member in his mouth. He recovered himself. _Good God. I didn't know it was __**that**__ many. I would have thought… you know, maybe ten thousand at most._

_Well, you know, a hundred years and if we count the dreams… Careful now, I'm moving._ He shifted himself closer to Peter and pulled down his lover's underwear with telekinesis. He leaned in and nuzzled Peter's cock, shifting down a little because their torsos were of different lengths. Peter adjusted himself. Specifically, they had lots of experience with this. Peter curled his arm around Gabriel's buttock, sliding his fingers into the seam of his ass. Gabriel copied the motion, sucking Peter's penis into his mouth, massaging it to hardness.

_We're old geezers,_ Peter thought._ You know, the other day I realized I was the oldest living person alive._

_I'm two years older than you are._

_What? How could I have forgotten that?_

_It's my boyish good looks._

Peter gave him an emotional push of exasperation and sucked harder. Gabriel keened, opening his mouth to pant around Peter's stiffening shaft.

_Oh, please, Peter…_

Peter knew what his lover wanted. He took him all the way in, his nose buried in the top of Gabriel's balls. Another thing that long practice had given them was expertise in giving each other what they wanted. The telepathy and empathy were big helps with that too.

"Ah!" There was no way Gabriel could focus on servicing Peter appropriately during this, so he just gave up, hung onto Peter's ass, and tried to restrain himself from fucking his face too forcefully. Peter finished him off quickly, Gabriel mewling and moaning all the while. He stayed put while Peter sucked him clean, though he trembled at the over-stimulation.

_Oh Peter… you've always been so good to me… No matter how much of an ass I've been._

_I happen to like your ass a lot_.

Gabriel laughed a little. _I'm so lucky_. He moved down a little and began kissing up and down Peter's shaft, giving it the undivided attention it deserved. He licked his fingers and probed into Peter's crack. When he had the tips of two of them worked into the other man, and Peter was straining against him, groaning and kissing his thigh, Gabriel deep-throated him. It was a trick he'd learned long ago. He rubbed his tongue back and forth on the underside of Peter's shaft, making him twitch and tense with each stroke. He wiggled his fingers in Peter's ass and swallowed around the obstruction in his throat, being practiced enough at this to ignore the inevitable gag reflex.

Peter whined at the sensation, his arms tightening around Gabriel's legs, his fingers digging into his skin. His breath caught and hitched. Gabriel repeated it, knowing he was creating that spasming sensation around the head of Peter's cock and a moment later Peter squeaked. He still made that adorable sound after all these years. Gabriel controlled himself carefully, not pulling off quite yet, even though his own breathing was starting to struggle. When he was sure Peter was done, he pulled back, sucking all the way, but there was no taste but himself. Peter had finished down his throat and now shuddered at the additional stimulation.

Gabriel pulled off and breathed deeply, giving himself the oxygen he'd been getting short on. Peter peppered his thighs with little kisses and thought to him, _Fifteen thousand… and one. It's a wonder we still turn each other on at all._

_Oh no, _Gabriel thought muzzily, letting himself drift into sleep. _I will __**always**__ want you… no matter…_ He fell asleep.

Peter gave him another peck on the leg and turned himself around, pulling up a sheet. He snuggled in close and joined him in slumber.


	9. Making Time for Each Other

**A/N: I'm not up to writing anything lengthy at the moment, but here's a little stolen scene.**

_Three years later…_

It was a rare evening alone together, without any pressing demands on their time. Sure, there were better things they could be off doing, more effective, but they needed the downtime. Peter was reading Doyle's The Valley of Fear, and seemed absorbed by it. Sylar sat quietly, sipping his iced coffee and considering that this just would not do. However, confronting Peter about it directly probably wasn't the best course.

Instead, Sylar went off to find one of the many watches he'd collected in spare moments in the last few years. He got out his tools and returned to the study, where he set up a TV tray and laid out his equipment. Peter looked up at him blankly for a moment, then went back to his book.

_Hm._ Sylar made a flourish of setting up, bringing in a separate lamp. Peter eyed that too, but again returned to reading about Holmes' latest adventure. Sylar settled in and pretended to shut out the world around him. As he'd expected, several minutes later Peter asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing a watch, Peter. Now hush." Sylar didn't look up, but he knew Peter scowled at him. He kept his face studiously blank.

Peter sighed and went back to his book, shifting uneasily. It didn't last. Sylar hadn't expected it to. A few minutes after that, Peter rose and came over to look. "So is this one fast or slow?"

"Peter! You're blocking the light. Don't stand there." He shooed Peter away and with a harrumph, Peter went back to his easy chair. He toyed with his book, watching as Sylar obsessed over the delicate mechanisms. Several minutes passed in a now-tense silence, before Peter stood abruptly and left. Sylar watched him go, disappointed.

_Did I do too much? Is he angry? What's he doing?_ He listened, tracking Peter's progress to the kitchen and hearing him get down a glass and fill it with water. Peter piddled around a bit more in the other room. Sylar sighed and went back to the timepiece. He might as well get the satisfaction of fixing it, if he wasn't going to be getting anything else right away.

Enough time passed that he was truly engrossed when Peter came back. Sylar registered his lover's entrance, but he'd given up on anything happening at the moment. It wasn't until Peter circled around behind him that hope pricked its ears. A moment later, with Sylar still bent to his task, Peter's mouth found one of those ears, sucking on the top of it. Sylar groaned quietly.

"Mmm," Peter hummed, letting go only so he could lick down the back of that ear, making it wet and cold. "Is that watch even broken?"

Sylar smiled. "Yes, actually it is." In a gentle, mocking tone, he said, "And you're keeping me from fixing it. For shame, Peter."

"Uh-huh. It took me a little bit to figure out what you were up to." Peter worked his way down Sylar's neck to his shoulder, running a hand under Sylar's collar and shirt on the other side. Peter bit him lightly as Sylar reached up to caress the top of his head.

"So it worked?"

"Yep." Peter came around the front and shoved the tray out of his way. Sylar caught it gracefully with telekinesis and moved it aside as Peter climbed on his lap.

"Hm. I love it when a good plan comes together."


End file.
